was, for that
was a world entirely beyond his ken. But I could see that he felt
lonelier than ever at my news. So I told him of the house I meant to
have in England when the war was over--an old house in a green hilly
country, with fields that would carry four head of cattle to the Morgan
and furrows of clear water, and orchards of plums and apples. 'And you
will stay with us all the time,' I said. 'You will have your own rooms
and your own boy to look after you, and you will help me to farm, and
we will catch fish together, and shoot the wild ducks when they come up
from the pans in the evening. I have found a better countryside than
the Houtbosch, where you and I planned to have a farm. It is a blessed
and happy place, England.'

He shook his head. 'You are a kind man, Dick, but your pretty _mysie_
won't want an ugly old fellow like me hobbling about her house ... I do
not think I will go back to Africa, for I should be sad there in the
sun. I will find a little place in England, and some day I will visit
you, old friend.'

That night his stoicism seemed for the first time to fail him. He was
silent for a long time and went early to bed, where I can vouch for it
he did not sleep. But he must have thought a lot in the night time, for
in the morning he had got himself in hand and was as cheerful as a
sandboy.

I watched his philosophy with amazement. It was far beyond anything I
could have compassed myself. He was so frail and so poor, for he had
never had anything in the world but his bodily fitness, and he had lost
that now. And remember, he had lost it after some months of glittering
happiness, for in the air he had found the element for which he had
been born. Sometimes he dropped a hint of those days when he lived in
the clouds and invented a new kind of battle, and his voice always grew
hoarse. I could see that he ached with longing for their return. And
yet he never had a word of complaint. That was the ritual he had set
himself, his point of honour, and he faced the future with the same
kind of courage as that with which he had tackled a wild beast or
Lensch himself. Only it needed a far bigger brand of fortitude.

Another thing was that he had found religion. I doubt if that is the
right way to put it, for he had always had it. Men who live in the
wilds know they are in the hands of God. But his old kind had been a
tattered thing, more like heathen superstition, though it had always
kept him humble. But no